AGAIN SCORES MAO TSE-TUNG
[In a four-and-a-half-hour speech at the University of Havana March 13, Fidel Castro took up a number of topics that have been but scantily reported in the press outside: Cuba. Headlined in the March 14 Havana press, the text has not yet become: available in either Paris or New, York. . ee
[castro talked about evidences of corruption reaching into high circles of the Cuban government, ascribing this to the imperialists, their embassies and such agencies as the CIA. He indicated that vigorous measures were being undertaken against this corruption.
[Castro also defended the strikers in the copper mines of Chile, scoring the decision of the Frei government to repress then.
[Among the items of. outstanding interest touched on by Castro was relations with the government of the People's Republic of China. The following account of this part of the speech was reported by the
March 15 Le Monde as follows on the basis of dispatches from various wire services. The translation from Le Monde is by World Outlook. ]
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Mr. Fidel Castro, prime. ‘minister of Cuba, in a. speech Sunday._ evening to the students at the University of Havana, uttered: a.vio- . lent diatribe against the leaders of Peking, thus renewing ‘his attacks, but in a. “still more bitter tone...
Mr. Fidel Castro accused the Peking leaders of. "felony". a nd of "betrayal" and stated that "the coryphees of People's China: are shoddy : revolutionists.
He accused ‘People! s China of. "Launching an. imperialist- type campaign against Cuba" and of having replied only with a "brief letter of insults" to his demand for an explanation on the halting of | Chinese rice exports to Cuba. He added: "It is sad and humiliating ~ that in the middle of the battle being conducted by our people against imperialism, we must utilize part of. our forces..to reply to those we considered to be sincere allies.
He dwelt on news reported by Latin-American delegations in China’ according to which Peking "ridiculed" his revolution in | . "infamous articles," thus committing a "historic error," because, .. he said, "one must be blind not to understand the importance which the Cuban Revolution will assume in the world in the years to come."
"Mao Tse-tung," he continued, "is deifying himself. Someday the Chinese people will settle accounts with its leaders on the subject of what we have done. Historically, a lie cannot endure , and someday the truth will be known. To seek to picture us as revisionists is ridiculous. It;is the New China Agency that transmits all> these slanders against the Cuban Revolution. These are the same as the ones likewise spread by the Associated Press, United Press and the worst elements of: ‘Trotskyisn...:[The sentence is broken off in this way in Le -Monde.]-It is a real -felony, real blackmail, a real betrayal of the international working class to deprive us of almost ~ half of our rice at a time of great difficulty for us. Only cretins and madmen trading with. other cretins and madmen could resort to. such procedures.
"When the Havana.-conference ended," he concluded, "they spoke in China of the big victory scored by China, thus falsifying the | situation. All the participants, including the Chinese representatives, know that the conference was a.victory for the revolutionary movements, not the big but the. little ones."